


Ignis

by StartingWithTheRidingCrop



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, set during & after the reichenbach fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:05:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StartingWithTheRidingCrop/pseuds/StartingWithTheRidingCrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.- Ann Landers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [constellationqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellationqueen/gifts).



> Happy Christmas to the amazing [constellationqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/constellationqueen) (preset from a rare pair exhange!)

He was torn, constantly battling with himself. He never wanted Jim to die on that roof, Sebastian was the closest thing to a friend that Jim had ever had.   
Sure he had started off as just another lackey but soon he was getting through to the man, getting him to eat and sleep when he needed it; once he even had to force him in the bath and he found himself laughing bitterly at the thought.   
Then on the other hand, thought it was crass to say, he was glad Jim did die. He fucking loathed himself for it, hated himself for being glad his boss, someone who essentially became his whole life, was gone and it was all because of one man.   
  
Jim hadn’t told him who his mark would be or much of the plan for that matter; just that he would ‘know him when he saw him’, well at least he knew he was male it gave him something to go on. He was used to Jim being vague however and everything always worked out, he trusted him implicitly so he simply nodded,

“Yes sir.”

“How many times have I told you to call me Jim?”

“It doesn’t suit you boss.” They both gave small smiles, an ongoing joke before every job; before Sebastian left for the building he was told to set up in and Jim made his way over to St. Bart’s.

He climbed the stairs, knowing it was just another job, knowing that he would go back with Jim and they would argue because Sebastian would want Jim to eat and Jim just wanted to get more work done.   
Of course that wasn’t the case, of course it wasn’t and it never fucking was, was it? Not with Jim anyway, everything had to be different, ‘not boring’.

***  
  
Sebastian had set up his rifle with the precision and care he was used to, setting up the scope and suddenly feeling at home.  
 He lived for this, he lived for the peace that came from being on the job and it was the same peace he felt when he was in Afghanistan and getting ready to take a shot. Save for the heat, dust and the destruction around him, though he certainly saw enough destruction with Jim around.  

He slowed his breathing, made it deep and steady and he waited. He would wait for as long as it took, he was remarkably good at waiting considering he was a generally impatient man however this was in all fairness completely different.   
He looked through his scope and after a few minutes waiting a man came into view. It was obvious that this was meant to be his mark and he refocused his scope and his breath stuttered and caught in his throat.

He was practically screaming at himself inside his own head, telling himself it couldn’t be right. Jim would have known; Jim wouldn’t do that to him. He couldn’t, he mustn’t have known but of course Jim knew everything.

“John.” His voice was barely even a whisper and his mind was suddenly filled with memories of heat and the beating sun he knew in Afghanistan only now there was a different type of heat.   
There was the memory of hot skin against his, hot lips pressed to his neck and jaw, sweat soaked skin sliding together and he realised he was holding his breath. He couldn’t do it, no matter what happened he couldn’t bring himself to kill John.   
  
Sebastian had always prided himself on being a man who has very few boundaries which was perfect when it came to working for someone like Moriarty; he would kill anyone without a second glance and was more than happy enough to get his hands messy.   
He could be vicious, animalistic if he wanted be violence that would make anyone else run to the corner to vomit.  Always earning him a smile from Jim, one of the rare smiles that wasn’t faked and of course the amazing pay check was also a bonus but sometimes it really was enough to just make Jim smile.

But now, he would trade that smile for John’s life, he would rather Jim never smiled again than kill John. It wasn’t love, love was ridiculous and juvenile, while this, this was something undefinable. He needed Jim, he did love Jim in his own weird way, like one would love a manic brother but John was… essential.  
 In the desert John would be the cool breeze that kept Sebastian going, in the heat he was the cool water that refreshed him and in the tents he was the pleasure that made him forget.   
  
He remembered them swearing to find each other once they were out, they wanted more than they time they had in Afghanistan, they had wanted forever but the more he thought of it the more he was sure Jim had known all along.   
He knew everything and he had to make sure Sebastian was impossible to find, he thought it was for the job but he knew it was more, Jim hated ‘distractions’ and that’s the only way he would have seen John where Sebastian was concerned. A distraction.

Sebastian was abruptly snapped from his thoughts by the sound of a gunshot, the echo seemed like it was reverberating around his own head and for some reason he immediately just knew.  
 He knew it was Jim, he knew Jim would do something like this just for a fucking _game_ and he hated him for it but the thought of Jim being gone was still a punch to the gut.

He instantly hated the fact Jim would leave him and he hated the fact that Jim would even consider trying to make Sebastian do this to John. Sebastian felt betrayed and he was angry yet there was still a gut wrenching sadness there knowing that Jim was gone, he was conflicted and he fucking despised it.

Under all of this, the snarling threads of anger and betrayal there was something akin to hope. Or at least he thought it was hope, it was certainly something he hadn’t felt until John was lying next to him, their naked bodies pressed against each other and they were whispering promises of a future to each other.   
Jim was gone yes, and it was awful but now he was there was a small chance with John, the slimmest of chances but he would still grasp it with both hands.

Once more he was pulled from his thoughts but this time it was John shouting, shouting Sherlock’s name and it twisted something in his gut.   
It was how he sounded when Sebastian had been… he tried to push the thought from his head, the scars on his chest and stomach almost throbbing with the memory he tried to push away.

He had thought he was going to die, hearing John scream his own name like that had felt like a vice in his chest clamping down on his heart and that was the moment he had known it was something _more_ than the juvenile notion of love.   
He thought he would never see John again, he had very nearly given up all hope and resigned himself to the fact he would never have anything like his time with John ever again and he had just been staring at him through the scope of a rifle.

It seemed like everything was over, in just a few minutes his life had shifted completely and he took apart his equipment in record time, shoving them in his bag and running down the stairs, nearly taking the door of its hinges as he ran outside.

He watched John get pulled away; even from here he could see the blood on the pavement and he stomach flipped at the sheer thought of what would be on the roof, Jim’s blood would be the same shade and he had to pause for a moment to collect his thoughts before he could move again.   
When he could move he was running again, he was so close; his entire focus was narrowing to one point and he was saying John’s name. He didn’t know if it was a shout or a whisper, everything seemed disjointed and slightly surreal until he was grounded by John.

As soon as he grabbed John’s arm it was as it everything was perfectly clear, he could hear almost every sound and see everything so sharply, including John who was now hanging onto him, keeping himself from falling and Sebastian gripped tight.   
He gripped so tight he was probably bruising John, marking him again and then his own mind was once again back in the desert, back in the barracks and back time to the last time he had gripped John so hard he had bruised him.

The large marks left where his fingers had gripped John’s hips, the marks he had sucked into John’s neck and bit onto his shoulders.   
He shook his head violently, he had just lost one of the most important people to him, so had John and Sebastian was here gripping onto him imagining the last time he had felt John’s sweat slicked skin glide against his own.

He was still holding John, holding him up, but it seemed John was finally slowly coming back to himself.   
The next thing he knew was a sharp shove against his chest and he was pushed back, it almost knocked the wind from him but he didn’t care because John was looking at him. His John, John who he swore he would find again and was looking at him with wide bloodshot eyes, wet and unblinking.

“Sebastian?”

He sounded cautious, as if this couldn’t all be happening, losing his friend and seeing Sebastian again, it would have all been far too surreal and for once Sebastian didn’t have a plan. He didn’t know what he would say, what he would do when he saw John again.

He knew what he wanted though; he wanted to hold John to him and feel him pressed against his chest while he whispered sweet nothings against his hair, just how it used to be; but when he stepped forward, John stepped back.

“John, please.” John stepped back again, he looked confused, angry. Lost and unbelieving that Sebastian was actually there.

“You can’t be here. It’s not you, YOU WOULD HAVE FOUND ME BY NOW. YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD FIND ME!” John was practically roaring at Sebastian and it seemed to push something inside of him and Sebastian closed the space between them, this time grabbing John so he couldn’t step back again.

“I tried! I thought I would never see you again!” Sebastian paused, still holding onto John’s arms and his mind slowly caught up, it was as if he could hear the gears turning in his own head.

Jim knew what was going to happen, the bastard planned this, he fucking knew John would be here and Sebastian would be alone and so would he.   
The clever little bastard did help him find John because of course he knew everything, he would give his left arm to hear Jim tell him he knew everything once more so this time he could agree instead of laughing and shaking his head.   
John looked up, wary of the smile now growing on Sebastian’s face.

“Sebastian?”

“This, all of this, it had a fucking meaning.” His hands dropped from John and gestured around him,

“It was all meant to happen, we said we would find each other and here we fucking are. Like we were… I don’t know pushed back together. Like it was meant to be or something! I don’t know, you were always better with words.”   
Sebastian felt almost giddy when he looked back to John, right now he couldn’t bring himself to think about the person he had just lost because it felt like there was something slotting into place, something that had always been just off and it was a relief to finally ‘fix it’.

There was a sudden burst of laughter from Sebastian, Jim will fucking fix it, of course he would. He could fix anything and he always said he would fix Sebastian, no matter what it took, just to see if he could.

John felt like he should be stepping back again, Sebastian seemed almost manic, but instead he found himself moving forward.   
He wanted to make sure Sebastian was actually there, nothing seemed quite real and he needed to reassure himself that Sebastian really was there. As soon as he was clinging to him again that as it and finally the tears came.

John’s body shook against Sebastian, wracked with sobs and he felt Sebastian solid and real under his hands.   
He had lost Sherlock and Sebastian was here, it was too much, there was too much to process and his chest was hurting with the force of the sobs.

“F-fuck, Seb.” John simply couldn’t form any more words and Sebastian knew he had to get him home, he couldn’t take him back to 221b it certainly wouldn’t be the best place for John right now. Instead he half carried John to the car and managed to sit him in the passenger seat, his shoulders still shaking.

Sebastian dumped his bag in the back seat before getting into the driver’s seat and giving John’s arm a reassuring squeeze before driving toward one of his and Jim’s safe houses.   
He was still torn about Jim, he fucking hated him but couldn’t love him more at this very moment for giving him back John.  
 Perhaps this would change later, he would probably end up bitter about Jim leaving him but right now his priority was John, no matter how fractured everything seemed at the moment.

By the time they reached the house John had exhausted himself emotionally and all but passed out in the passenger seat and Sebastian didn’t want to risk waking him so instead carried him inside, trying not to wake John as he lay him gently down on top of the bed.

***

When John finally woke his immediate reaction was panic, he couldn’t remember going to sleep and he certainly didn’t recognise the room. Everything still seemed disjointed and he was having a hard time letting his mind catch up to what he remembered.   
Sherlock. Sherlock was gone but there was… No, it definitely couldn’t have been, it must be the mind from the shock.

He stood from the bed slowly, noting he was still dressed and he froze when he heard someone downstairs, he took a breath to steel himself before walking downstairs and following the sound into the kitchen where he was assaulted with the smell of food.

His stomach growled but he immediately forgot about his hunger when he saw who was cooking, it was Sebastian and it was real.

“S…Seb?” He turned around slowly, as if he didn’t want to startle John and he immediately held out his arms.

“Captain.” John didn’t have to think twice before moving toward him, wrapping his arms tight around Sebastian’s waist and burying his face into his chest and breathing in deeply.

“Fuck, it’s really you. You even smell the same.” Sebastian’s arm wrapped around John’s shoulders, his other hand resting on the back of John’s neck, stroking the skin lightly with his thumb.   
He couldn’t tell if the gesture was comforting John or himself but he didn’t care. This was happening, they were together and it was so very real.

“So do you soldier.” John had never felt so at home, for a few moments he forgot about Sherlock and swelled with joy as Sebastian called his soldier, just like he used to.

“How, how did this all happen?” John pulled back, looking up at Sebastian and expecting answers and Sebastian laughed quietly, shrugging his soldiers.

“I have no fucking idea, but I guess I should feel awful that it did. I mean, it was… It was something but I can’t help but be partly grateful it did happen. I hate that you saw that happen, I hate that you saw that happen to your best friend but I’m so fucking happy you’re here.”   
John didn’t say anything in reply to Sebastian’s rambling, simply buried his face back into Sebastian’s chest and after a few moments he made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

Neither of them had a clue yet it was as if nothing had changed though John knew nothing would ever be the same. Both of their entire worlds had been tipped upside down in one day.

“What now Seb?” His voice was a whisper, the gravity of everything finally sinking in and he leaned almost desperately into Sebastian’s touch.

“I don’t know, but I think food then bed might be a good place to start.”


End file.
